Alan Caruba

Unfortunately, Alan passed away in June of 2015 and he will be sorely missed - With a career that began in the 1960s as a young journalist, Alan Caruba has been writing ever since to include several books and numerous magazine articles over the years. In addition, he has been a reviewer and charter member of The National Book Critics Circle, with membership in the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the Society of Professional Journalists. He is best known and widely read these days for the commentaries he posts on his popular blog that cover a wide range of topics from politics to energy, environmentalism to education, and everything in between. He is a graduate of the University of Miami (FL), served in the U.S. Army, and resides in New Jersey. Caruba's blog, Warning Signs, has recently passed 2.3 million page views. His monthly report on new books, Bookviews.com, is ideal for anyone who loves to read, reporting on many new fiction and non-fiction titles. Information about his editorial and public relations services can be found on Caruba.com.

On March 12, the American Baking Association, representing 85% of the total baking industry, will lead a “Band of Bakers March on Washington.” Representatives from more than 50% of the nation’s largest baking companies will call on Congress to correct the policies it has created over the years that have led to soaring food and oil prices.

“The tripling of oil prices since the summer of 2003 has unleashed forces that within the next two or three years will bring oil prices tumbling back down to below $50 a barrel.” So said John Cassidy, writing about “The Coming Oil Crash” in the January issue of Conde Nast Portfolio. Yes, the price of oil will come down, though no one knows exactly when. It has topped $100 a barrel and there are indications it could go higher.

For the last two days, March 2-4, I and about five hundred other people attended the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, including some of the world’s leading authorities on climatology, meteorology, economics, energy, and other fields of knowledge.

It was an extraordinary event, held in New York and sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think tank that has been among those leading the effort to educate and inform the public about the mountain of lies that have led them to believe that the Earth is experiencing a huge increase in heat, a "global warming", that is allegedly the direct result of human activities, primarily from the use of energy that includes coal, natural gas, and oil.

Those of us who grew up in the 1940s and 50s almost universally look back on those days with great fondness.

Born into an era that saw the end of the Depression and living as children through World War II, we were nonetheless somehow shielded from it by parents who took care to ensure that these calamities in the world did not take from us the sheer joy of being young.

I heard from Friends of the Earth, a huge environmental organization, who one would think would favor the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2007 being advanced by Senate Democrats. It would impose a cap-and-trade program to force reductions of so-called greenhouse gas emissions.

FOE, however, was wailing about the way “it lavishes up to $1 trillion on industries responsible for global warming and in return asks for reduction targets well below what scientists say are necessary.” This is typical of the Greens for whom enough is never enough. It also reflects their insane hatred of the very industries that underpin the nation’s economy, i.e., jobs, exports, the whole enchilada.

The Democrats are at it again. Both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama have made “poverty” a central theme of their campaigns, promising to lift up the poor and put a chicken in every pot, a large screen TV on every wall, and a new car in every driveway.

Predictably, the government, i.e., taxpayers, will be expected to underwrite a raft a new programs to alleviate the problems of the poor. Those of us old enough to remember President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” also recall that there were poor then and there are poor now.